Learnin' Stuff

You might have wondered why am I doing this. It would be easy for me to answer with a non-answer, with “Why not?” or “Because it’ll be great!”

But I don’t want to leave it just at that. There some information that sounds like an answer on the about page, but when I re-read it, it sounds a little...formal? stiff? didactic? 

Well I'm gonna try again and explain some things.

My decision to take a gap year was a two-year process. I can’t tell you exactly when or why it began, but I can tell you that one of the biggest reasons has to do with school.

In the last year I have thought a lot about school, and learning things, and where it is I have learned the most.

To be clear, I don’t deny the importance of what you learn in school and in school curriculums, and I know it’s important to have the ability to write clearly, and to know theorems well enough to utilize them, and to have a understand of the basic structures that make up the world as we know it.

I am, however, certain that no one would disagree with me when I say that that kind of learning is not the most important kind. And yeah, that’s obvious to a lot of people. But I’m embarrassed to admit that it took me a long time to realize that, and to really appreciate what that means—to embrace the places and situations other than school in which I have learned.

In the theatre I have learned about art and emotion, and have learned how to connect with humanity. In the pool I have learned just how far I will go, and can go, to reach a goal. I’ve learned just how much it matters to be supported and how much it matters to recognize when a change needs to happen. On the ski slopes I’ve learned what it is to fly, and what it is to be giddy with anticipation all the while having to refine, refine, refine a movement I thought I mastered long ago. At camp, I’ve learned what it is to be a leader, what it is to be a friend, and what it is to be a person I am proud of.

All of these other classrooms have given me much. There are no tests in these classrooms, no papers, no evaluations. There are only the experiences, and the feeling that you have left these classrooms all the better for having entered them.

I’ll be the first to admit that school classrooms make me a little crazy. They make me forget what really matters when it comes to learning. I focus on the material, the studying, the tests, the grades. I forget that I don’t have to prove myself to anyone, and that the most important thing is not the grade, not the approval of a teacher or the admiration of my peers. The most important thing is my own happiness.

That, in a sense, is why I am doing this gap year thing. I want to step away from the mindset I have about school. I want to find new classrooms. Instead of focusing on the essay due next Tuesday, the vocab test on Friday, the fact that I still don’t understand inverse trig functions, I want to focus on my relationship to the world around.

I want to leave behind the idea of school as I know it. So, I’m going with the mindset that the best homework is the homework you assign yourself. I’m going to seek out new opportunities, to leave my comfort zone, to go into a world where there is no dependable measure of how well I am doing. I’m going with the hope that when I come back I will be all the better for having gone.

Can We Just Take A Moment to Talk About Les Mis?

The summer before second grade, my parents took my older brother and me to see Les Misérables. Now, whether or not my parents didn’t really know the story or they just hoped that the more mature parts would just go over our heads, I don’t know, but they took us, and we liked it so much that they bought tickets to go again a few days later.

It’s hard for a seven year old to sit through a three hour-long show, especially when she has trouble understanding the lyrics that deliver most of the dialogue. A lot of the plot went over my head. So did practically all of the symbolism, musical themes, and weight of the story. I didn’t totally understand why the events playing out before me were important.

Nevertheless, the show left quite the impression on me. Even if I don’t remember much from when I first saw Les Mis, I remember certain moments, frozen in time.

The rotating stage. Valjean ripping a yellow slip of paper. A stack of papers tossed in the air. The Master of the House song. The Thénadiers showing up at the wedding, and Madame Thénadier trying to steal the plates.

The barricade, clothed in smoke. Gunshots. The barricade rotating, its other side covered in dead bodies. One man suspended upside down, a red cape hanging from his shoulders, a flag.

The thing I remember most strongly is that we bought the soundtrack, and I listened to it at night a few days later when trying to sleep. Listening to the music, I started to cry. And to this day I cannot explain why.

On the last Tuesday of August, my family went to see Les Mis again for my dad’s birthday. Seeing it again reminded me why I love theatre so much. Nothing else does quite as good a job of holding, “as ‘twere, a mirror up to nature.” Theatre knows the little pathways to my heart and mind, and, often, I leave shows with my thoughts thrumming with new ideas and little realizations. I go to a show and see myself in it, reflected back, reminded that I am not the only participant in the bizarre world of the human condition.

Les Mis is one of these shows that know just how to pull on my heart—and yep, there were silent tears. Again. Its one of those shows, where you might have seen it all before, but each time there are little pieces that burst into my mind like miniature revelations.

For instance, this time around, I reached a new level of empathy with Éponine’s character. I’ve never really understood her, and her big song “On My Own” has never made much sense to me. But, for whatever reason, this rendition of that song hit home a little. The line, “And I know that I’m talking to myself and not to him,” especially came into crystalline clarity. I, too, have entertained imaginings so tangible and vivid that I could almost, almost mistake them for reality. Now, I haven’t exactly been in Éponine’s position of unrequited love, but I have tried to imagine the future. I’ve spent several months trying to guess what the next few months will be like, without really having any template, any real sense of what I will experience. I’ve just let my daydreams swirl along and bumping up against each other, all the scenarios I can imagine laid out in a river. But I’ve also dreamed of Harry Potter and Middle Earth, dreamed in Disney and dreamed in play scripts. And sometimes these dreams of mine, just on the other side of reality, are just as vivid as those that are real.

And listening to “Bring Him Home” stuck a chord in me that couldn’t be reached before. Previously I had thought of this piece as a challenging song that is a testament to Valjean’s character, love for his daughter, and large heart. But this time around, I was in a totally new place in life while I listened to this song, and I found myself wondering if this song, in a way, reflects my parents’ feelings about this gap year business, and if it reflects the feelings of my friends parents about their children leaving for college.